Hi, thanks for the reply,
No, I'm not recreating the same layer, it has a different name and is being saved in a different location.
I've attached a jpeg of the model in case anyone is curious, sorry it seems rather complicated.
Currently I have the problem area set to select, and copy features(2), but select gives me the error "an expected field was not found or could not be retrieved properly".
I also tried running it without any of the add or calculate fields added afterwards and it still gives me the same error.
The query I am using in "select" and the one i used in "make feature layer" (first step which works) is:
[indent] "GoodLake"="yes"[/indent]
and i am querying a file geodatabase, hence the quotes. The field name is correct, and there are records in the table that have a value of "yes"